Favorite Alternate History/Speculative Fiction novels
Explore top alternate history and speculative fiction novels that reimagine the past and future. Discover must-read books with unique twists on historical events and imaginative worlds.
Book
Don't Mess with Earth
by Cliff Ball
Advanced humans, calling themselves Terrans, leave a highly corrupt and mostly primitive Earth to search out a new planet to inhabit. Once on a new planet, they begin exploring the rest of the galaxy and begin watching over their more primitive human cousins back on Earth. Some Terrans are well known in human history, people such as King Arthur, Galileo, Genghis Khan, and Amelia Earhart. The Terrans come across an alien species, called the Ragnor, that experiment on other species for no reason other than that they can. The Ragnor discover Earth by accident and start their abductions and experiments on the first set of humans they come across, the colonists on Roanoke Island. The Ragnor continue to cause mayhem and mischief on Earth, eventually getting shot down over Roswell, New Mexico. Once the humans on Earth figure out they're being manipulated by both sides, President Truman has the United States embark on a plan to pay back both the Terrans and the Ragnor with the technology created by Area 51. Once the plan is initiated, will Earth succeed in its payback or fail gloriously?
Book
The Guns of the South
by Harry Turtledove
Winter of 1864, General Robert E. Lee finds himself and his Army of Northern Virginia huddled on the banks of the Rapidan, trying to fight a war despite meager rations and a terrible lack of equipment - indeed, some of his men do not even have shoes. But when Lee finds a way to arm his forces, the tide suddenly turns; the rebels win a decisive victory at the Battle of Wilderness. Lee presses his advantage, marching on Washington. But if Lincoln surrenders, and the.
Book
1632
by Eric Flint
FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE 1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy. 2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time. THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED.... When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War. Comprehensive Teacher's Guide available.
Book
Dies the Fire
by S. M. Stirling
When a strange electrical storm over the island of Nantucket suddenly causes all electronic devices to cease functioning, the world is faced with an unimaginable transformation, one that is complicated by some individuals' ruthless quest for ultimate domination. Reprint.
Book
The Scourge of God
by S. M. Stirling
In this continuation of the bestselling author's chronicle of an alternate world, Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States where he hopes to learn the truth behind The Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.
Book
The Sword of the Lady
by S. M. Stirling
Rudi Mackenzie ventures to post-apocalyptic Nantucket, where he discovers a beautifully made sword waiting for him in the only house that remains standing, and taking possession of it, realizes that nothing will ever be the same.
